Natural family planning

Natural family planning
Background
Type	Behavioral
First use	Ancient: calendar, LAM mid-1930s: BBT 1950s: mucus
Failure rates (First six months: LAM Per year: symptoms- and calendar-based)
Perfect use	LAM: 0.5% Symptoms based: 1–3% Calendar based: 5–9%
Typical use	LAM: 2% Symptoms based: 2–25% Calendar based: 25%
Usage
Reversibility	Yes
User reminders	Dependent upon strict user adherence to method
Advantages and disadvantages
STI protection	No
Period advantages	Prediction
Benefits	Personal self-awareness, no side effects, can aid pregnancy achievement, in accord with Catholic teachings, no blocks that affect intercourse

Natural family planning (NFP) comprises the family planning methods approved by the Roman Catholic Church and some Protestant denominations for both achieving and postponing or avoiding pregnancy. In accordance with the Church's teachings regarding sexual behavior, NFP excludes the use of other methods of birth control, which it refers to as "artificial contraception."

Periodic abstinence is now deemed moral by the Church for avoiding or postponing pregnancy for just reasons. When used to avoid pregnancy, couples may engage in sexual intercourse during a woman's naturally occurring infertile times such as during portions of her ovulatory cycle. Various methods may be used to identify whether a woman is likely to be fertile; this information may be used in attempts to either avoid or achieve pregnancy.

Effectiveness can vary widely, depending on the method used, whether the user was trained properly, and how carefully they followed the protocol. Pregnancy can result in anywhere from 1 to 25% of the user population per year for users of the symptoms based or calendar based methods, depending on the method used and how carefully it was practiced. If perfectly practised, pregnancy rates can be as low as 1% per year; if imperfectly practised, as high as 25%. (See sidebar.)

Natural family planning has shown very weak and contradictory results in pre-selecting the gender of a child, with the exception of a Nigerian study at odds with all other findings. Because of these remarkable results, an independent study needs to be repeated in other populations.

Church writers were consistently against abstinence to prevent childbirth until the mid-19th century. Possibly the earliest Christian writing about periodic abstinence was by Clement of Alexandria. He wrote, "Let the Educator (Christ) put us to shame with the word of Ezekiel: 'Put away your fornications' [Eze. 43:9]. Why, even unreasoning beasts know enough not to mate at certain times. To indulge in intercourse without intending children is to outrage nature, whom we should take as our instructor."

In the year 388, St. Augustine wrote: "Is it not you who used to counsel us to observe as much as possible the time when a woman, after her purification, is most likely to conceive, and to abstain from cohabitation at that time...?" The Manichaeans (the group the early church father St. Augustine wrote of and considered to be heretics) believed that it was immoral to create any children, thus (by their belief system), trapping souls in mortal bodies. Augustine condemned them for their use of periodic abstinence: "From this it follows that you consider marriage is not to procreate children, but to satiate lust."

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Wikipedia